Shoeless

{This is a response to Friday Fictioneers, a weekly prompt, that challenges us to write 100 words, inspired by the chosen photo. Lakota is a Native American tribe and a dialect. My husband’s family history includes a great grandmother who was Lakota, and who resided in North Dakota. The name “Sioux” refers to Lakota, Dakota and Nakota tribes, named for their various dialects. The term Sioux itself, is believed to have pejoritive roots, coming through French from the Ojibwe word for “little snakes,” according the The Black Hills Visitor blog. Thank you for the prompt and for commenting. All errors are my own.}

Shoeless, Ravenna glided down the exhibit’s long dock. Morning sun scaled a glass wall, bathing the dock in light.

Early to work, she had the entire “Nations” exhibit to herself.

In the set of her jaw and brow, a barely perceptible iota of Lakota–once branded “Sioux,” by enemies—stirred.

She longed to peruse that unprinted history, to run barefoot, through those painted woods and plains.

Overhead, fluorescents flickered on. They vibrated with visual white noise, shattering the beam of sunlight she so quietly inhabited.

Time for work. Trapping each foot in a leather cage, she tramped back towards civilization.

I too prefer bare or stockinged feet. My arches aren’t as supportive of this preference though!?. And those lights are buzzy, irritating things, while LEDs in my book are MUCH TOO BRIGHT! Give me a good ole incandescent, any day.

Thank you Brad! Oneness with nature seems in keeping both with ancient tribal traditions and modern mindfulness.

Very interesting photo. As a teen in Minnesota I had to learn very basic and no doubt stereotyped information about the Sioux And Chippewa tribes, now Lakota, Dakota, Nakota and Ojibwe, i believe.

I do not know how warm and fuzzy such museum offerings would make actual Native Americans feel. It is my understanding that many items of Native American heritage, found in museums, were misappropriated or removed from graves. This puts some of them on a footing with Klimt’s portrait of Adele block-bauer, the subject of the movie Woman inGold, about the niece’s fight to get the painting, stolen by the Nazis from her family, back from the Austrian government.

I suspect that the appeal of museums to Native Americans depends a lot on who puts the displays together and who tells the stories. Museums today try to give Native peoples opportunities to tell their own stories, but I don’t know if it’s enough. I like how your Minnesota roots appear from time to time in your own stories!

Thanks Trent. Its funny the title of the picture had to do with children’s shoes, but i had already done a similar piece not long ago, for a different prompt site. I tried to reconcile the wooden planks in the foreground, with the painted background,and the only locale that made sense to me was a museum exhibit.